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Using idealistic stories for purposes of moral and religious education
The story of the Ugly Duckling is much truer than many a statement of fact. — Sara Cone Bryant. There is no more deadly enemy to spiritual truth than prosaic literalness. — Louise Seymour Houghton. Fact is at best but a garment of truth which has ten thousand changes of raiment woven in the same loom. — George Macdon¬ald. The genuine fairy-tale always represents, in the play of the imagination, a deep moral content; for its root is the poetic side of the mind, which clothes a higher truth in visible shapes and delivers it in the form of a story. — William Rein. The proper function of fancy in intellectual life is spirituality. Spiritual truths are hidden in the precious honey of stories. —Colonel Parker. There are grown-up people now who say that the (fairy) stories are not good for children because they are not true. . . and because people are killed in them, especially wicked giants. But probably you who read these stories know very well how much is true and how much is only make-believe, and I never yet heard of a child who killed a very tall man merely because Jack killed the giants. . . . I am not afraid that you will be afraid of the magicians and dragons; besides you see that a really brave child was always their master, even in the height of their power. — Andrew Lang. The mere fact that a thing has existed for a thousand or two thousand years is not always proof that it is worth preserving. But the fact that after having been repeated for two thousand years a story still possesses a perfectly fresh attraction for a child of to-day, does indeed prove that there is in it something of im¬perishable worth. — Felix Adler. The moral ideas inculcated by the fables are usually of a practical, worldly wisdom sort, not high ideals of moral quality, not virtue for its own sake, but varied examples of the results a rashness and folly. This is, perhaps, one reason why they are so well suited to the immature moral judgments of chil¬dren. — Charles A. McMurray. The peculiar value of the fables is that they are instantaneous photographs, which reproduce, as it were, in a single flash of light, some one aspect of human nature, and which excluding everything else, permit the entire attention to be fixed on that one. — Felix Adler. Because they are untrue to fact many of the first group are often considered unsuitable for use by the teacher of morals, but a very little thoughtful consideration will show that they have great moral value, and that a large part of their special power is due to this very character¬istic. The departure from prosaic and temporary fact is that the ideal and eternal truth may be more strongly emphasized. Events are related that could not possibly have happened, but it does not follow that the tale must have a vicious influence. Among the important forms of idealistic stories are fairy- and folk-tales, myths, legends, fables, and allegories. Most of these have a moral content, and indeed a moral aim was usually responsible for their origin. The others should be discarded by the teacher of morals, or should be carefully edited with the moral aim in mind. Most fairy-tales and folk-tales, whether they are modern in origin or, as is true with most of the children's favorites, have come down to us from a very distant past, have this distinctly moral quality, which appears in the fact that virtue is rewarded and wrong-doing receives its punishment. This, the critic will object, is true of real life as well. So much may be granted, but we must remember that "the mills of God grind slowly," and that frequently the child is unable to trace the relation between cause and effect in such cases. Nature's penalties are sure, but often one must wait a lifetime to see their completion, while sometimes it is upon the next generation that they fall most heavily. When the retribution falls it is often of a kind that the child or untutored adult cannot appreciate in advance. In fairy-land, on the other hand, penalty quickly follows offense, and is of a kind that strongly appeals to the motives that influence a child. Hence oftentimes a fairy-tale points a moral more effectively than a story drawn from real life. If there is a valid principle back of the lesson taught there is no danger of moral loss when the child reaches the critical age, unless the story has been presented as one of the realistic type. Children find as much pleasure in stories which they know are the product of another's fancy as they do in playthings which by the power of their own imagination they transform into something very different from what they are. A myth is in its origin an idea which has been clothed with a poetic garb of fiction. While it is an interpretation of some phenomenon of nature, it is an explanation in terms of human motives and hence has a moral content. It is an attempt at scientific explanation by those who are so unsophisticated as to attribute anthropomorphic personality and motives to all objects about them, which means that it is really a search for principles underlying human conduct. In this sphere the judgments passed are usually true and of real importance. There is a peculiar charm about the classic myths that gives them special teaching power. This is largely due to the fact that they appeal to those elemental feelings which are common to all men, and which have the dominant place in the lives of primitive races and of children. There is also a special picturesqueness and charm of form which they owe to the fact that they were long preserved in oral form before they were committed to writing. Handed down for many centuries by word of mouth, filtered through the minds of scores of genera¬tions, they have been subjected to a continual process of testing and elimination of elements that do not appeal to interest and conform to popular ethical standards until a certain measure of perfection of form and content has been attained. So great is the charm of the Greek myths, for example, and so strongly do they appeal to the interests of children and youth, that it is with real regret that many teachers have put them aside because of the moral imperfections of the gods and the polytheistic conceptions with which they are filled. They are right in putting the moral and religious results above all others that are involved, and, from the days of Plato on, many educators have felt the same necessity and have reached the same conclu sion. But the rejection of all these stories is not as essen tial as it seems at first thought. The elimination of such of the stories as cannot be so edited as to remove accounts of the grosser forms of immorality and to emphasize the fact that vice and virtue meet their certain rewards meets the ethical requirement. The gods of the Greeks were only men of superhuman powers, and the stories of their lives have the same educational values as others of the ideal type. The polytheistic element still remains as an objection on the side of religious education, but it may be readily overcome. One may introduce the myth by saying, "You know, children, that our Father in heaven made the earth and everything about us, and that he takes care of us all. Many years ago there were people who had never heard of this; but when they looked out upon the beautiful world and saw the sun rising every morning, and the stars shining at night, and the flowers blooming, and the fruits ripening in the trees, they knew that some one must care for all of these. Since they did not know of the one great God who can do all things they thought that there must be one god for the sun and one for the stars, another for the flowers and still another for the fruits. I am going to tell you of some of the things that they thought these gods did." When one has finished the story he may add, "That is the way they told it long ago, but we know that it is really our Father in heaven who cares for all the creatures that he has made." So the thought of those old days may stir the simple religious feelings of the child — the wonder and love and dread and trust that he shares with the men of that early age — and that without giving him wrong conceptions of God. Fables are stories in which animals, plants, and even inanimate things are given the characteristics of men, that lessons of a moral or utilitarian character may be presented in interesting and telling form. They usually point out the weaknesses and foibles of men, and are chiefly of value for purposes of warning. In allegory there is always a meaning which lies be neath the surface of the story, and which is never ex¬plicitly stated. Usually the story is longer and more involved than in the case of fable, and it appeals to more highly developed intellectual powers. It may be distin¬guished from the fairy-tale, the myth, and the legend by the fact that throughout the tale there is a substitution of one thing for another. For example, a human quality or characteristic may be personified as in Pilgrim's Progress or George Macdonald's Li/it!:. Some fables and some modern fairy-tales might be classed with allegory. Legend is story which is based upon fact, but in which event or personality has been magnified in the process of oral transmission through long periods of time. This change is unconsciously made, and usually is the result of the tendency to emphasize really impor¬tant facts or truths. Hence it is usually true that the fictitious element is associated with the real point of the story and serves to strengthen the high lights and deepen the shadows, thus making the story more effective for its teaching purpose — provided the teacher does not insist that it is a relation of fact. Legend helps to bridge the gap between the fairy-tale and real history, and to bring about the correlation of feeling and fact. Stories in which human thought and feeling have been attributed to the lives of the lower animals have been branded as "sham natural history," and have been severely attacked by men of scientific spirit. If these are told as realistic stories the criticism is well warranted both from the standpoint of natural history and from that of pedagogy. But if treated as fiction, if presented as fairy-tales and legends should be, they may serve a useful purpose in moral edu¬cation, for they appeal to the spontaneous interests of childhood, and they awaken sympathies that tend to THE USE OF IDEALISTIC STORIES guide the child's conduct not only toward these creatures but toward human beings as well. In all the cases cited above, unless it be the last, it will be observed that the departure from fact has been with the conscious or unconscious aim to set forth a truth with greater emphasis. If tactfully used such stories need not be misleading. Even a child can realize that a story may be fictitious without being false. If told with emphasis upon their inner meaning, and with no insistence upon literal fact or correctness of detail, they will often carry their messages more effectively than exact records of the actual happenings of life. So the teacher may seek with confidence for valuable ma¬terial among the stories of this class. The one essential for idealistic stories is not that they should be true, but that they should clearly and impres¬sively set forth a truth. HINTS FOR FIRST - HAND STUDY Select five of the most popular fairy-tales and carefully study their moral influence. If it is harmful note whether the harm can be eliminated without weakening the force of the story. Study one of the most interesting myths that you know with a view to its possible use with children. If it seems suitable, try it and note the effect. Study Hawthorne's Fonder Tales and Kingsley's Greek Heroes to aid in adaptation. Re-examine /Esop's fables and test their value with children and adults. Recall your attitude toward Pilgrim's Progress. At what age was it most interesting ? Did you at that time realize its allegorical meaning? Study one or two of the legends of the saints and one or two of the King Arthur stories, and test their value with youth and adults.